Many of us now live in cities that are hundreds or thousands of years old. An inevitable consequence of the organic and informal nature of the growth of cities is that radical change to their physical structure is needed from time to time, if they are to thrive and prosper.

There needs to be some way in which the fabric of cities can be amended and re-structured to meet the ever-changing needs of the population.

The means by which land can be reassembled for urban development has become a worldwide need.

The two common methods – voluntary cooperation between land-owners and compulsory purchase by public authority – only represent opposite ends of the spectrum, and consequently other more intermediate methods are often ignored.

In this report, Professor Rob Home of Anglia Ruskin University, UK, provides a background to land readjustment in order to raise awareness of its possibilities in the English-speaking world.

This research was funded by a small grant from the RICS Education Trust, which allowed Rob Home to visit Israel and Lebanon, to conduct fieldwork in Haifa, Netanya and Beirut.

For further information on this research, please contact:

Amy Roberts
RICS Research Officer
RICS Communications
E aroberts@rics.org